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Berkeley Scientists Plan To 'Jurassic Park' Some Extinct Pigeons Back To Life
phenopticon writes "Researchers at Berkeley are attempting to revive the extinct passenger pigeon in order to set up a remote island theme park full of resurrected semi-modern extinct animals. (Well, maybe not that last part.) Quoting: 'About 1,500 passenger pigeons inhabit museum collections. They are all that's left of a species once perceived as a limitless resource. The birds were shipped in boxcars by the tons, sold as meat for 31 cents per dozen, and plucked for mattress feathers. But in a mere 25 years, the population shrank from billions to thousands as commercial hunters decimated nesting flocks. Martha, the last living bird, took her place under museum glass in 1914. ... Ben Novak doesn't believe the story should end there. The 26-year-old genetics student is convinced that new technology can bring the passenger pigeon back to life. "This whole idea that extinction is forever is just nonsense," he says. Novak spent the last five years working to decipher the bird's genes, and now he has put his graduate studies on hold to pursue a goal he'd once described in a junior high school fair presentation: de-extinction. ... Using next-generation sequencing, scientists identified the passenger pigeon's closest living relative: Patagioenas fasciata, the ubiquitous band-tailed pigeon of the American west. This was an important step. The short, mangled DNA fragments from the museums' passenger pigeons don't overlap enough for a computer to reassemble them, but the modern band-tailed pigeon genome could serve as a scaffold. Mapping passenger pigeon fragments onto the band-tailed sequence would suggest their original order."
"It's a UNIX system! I know this!"
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
saber-tooth tigers?
"How soon will some extinct creature live again?
Signs are there will be some impressive milestones in this decade. Technically one extinction has already been partially reversed. The last Pyrenean ibex (also called a bucardo) died in 2000. A Spanish team used frozen tissue to clone a living twin in 2003, birthed by a goat. The baby ibex died of respiratory failure after ten minutes (a common problem in early cloning efforts). Funding dried up, so no further work has been done on this species as yet. As George Church reminds people, the first airplane flight in 1903 lasted 12 seconds."
From the FAQ - http://longnow.org/revive/faq-recommended-reading/
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Don't be silly, nothing like that could happen - the new birds will be engineered to make them unable to produce Lysine, so they'll be dependent upon Lysine supplements from their keepers. Stop feeding them Lysine and the bio-engineered birds will die. Easy-peasy. What could go wrong?
While I'd like to restore an extinct species, this sort of thing is outright irresponsible.
As irresponsible as wiping them out without thinking of the ramifications?
No sig today...
I want my dog back. Perhaps modify the gene's so he does not run out in the middle of the road?
Yes, we could have started with saber-tooth tigers. But no, we don't.
Because this isn't a movie, and we aren't pretending to be idiots just to move a plot along.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I read the article. One of the questions is whether or not it is a good thing to bring them back. Sure, humans brutally hunted them, but prior to that, they were quite the pests... destroying the trees they nested in and leaving "leavings" an inch thick. One of the points made by the guy running this now was that they should go through the exercise of figuring out answers to questions like those, before it gets to the point where DIY folks could do this in an irresponsible way. It might serve as a way to determine what the risks and benefits are for "de-extinction" before deciding to "de-extinct" anything.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
God creates pigeons. God destroys pigeons. God creates Man. Man destroys God. Man creates pigeons. Pigeons destroy Man. Pigeons inherit the Earth.
The short, mangled DNA fragments from the museums' passenger pigeons don't overlap enough for a computer to reassemble them, but the modern band-tailed pigeon genome could serve as a scaffold. Mapping passenger pigeon fragments onto the band-tailed sequence would suggest their original order."
Not quite the original, so not exactly a de-extinction. More of a new breed of Frankenbird.
While I'd like to restore an extinct species, this sort of thing is outright irresponsible.
As irresponsible as wiping them out without thinking of the ramifications?
What about the ramifications of bringing an extinct bird back to life that was adapted to thrive in a much different environment than exists today? Are its natural predators still around or will the passenger pigeon take over and push out other species (not to mention causing crop and tree damage)?
http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm
Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its existence. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated by shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. However, this did not seem to seriously diminish the total number of birds.
Has anyone asked Jeff Goldblum to weigh in?
I'm tired of the motha-fuckin saber-tooth tigers on the motha-fuckin golf course!
This is pretty old news (not surprising for /. I guess) but there was a Ted talk I think on Monday and it was filmed in February. I disagree with some of the ad hoc de-extinctions they propose. Lets bring back the wooly mammoth. Okay, so how well is things working out for normal elephants? Do you really thing asia won't go apeshit for some mammoth tusks?
Lets say we clearly know it was humans fault that a particular animal went extinct. Even then there are a lot of issues. The ecosystem has now changed if you add the animal again it might just go back to being extinct because it might be poorly adapted (wrong colour to camouflage in urban environment for example), might still be of interest to poachers so as quick as you bring them back they get hunted right back down to extinction, and finally they might put other "invasive species" or ones that were already part of the ecosystem but grew due to lack of competition at risk as they come back and displace them.
That is just the ones that we feel guilty about but nothing will stop the tree huggers from wanting to get us to bring back everything even if it went extinct for its own good reasons or will have huge adverse effects in systems we already have trouble maintaining: ex. bringing back dinosaurs into jungles we are already cutting down for lumber. Not every species deserves or needs to thrive that is how evolution works. If you are too slow and too tasty you die.
Okay, I've read this book / seen this movie and know how this turns out so I've got a checklist for when extinct pigeons inevitably become terror-pigeons.
( ) Train young child on Unix
( ) Use old fashioned door knobs
( ) Get several big guns and don't store them in another building
( ) Make sure vehicles are ICE and not electric
( ) Redundant computer systems are good. You don't have good enough backups.
( ) Happy computer administrators are important when hosting terror critters. Make admins happy.
( ) The guy with the military training and the lawyer are always the first victims, get to know one of each so that you have warning
( ) Outhouses are bad
( ) Big thick steel doors are your friend
( ) Things can go wrong, that's what the lawyer and military training guys are for
( ) Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Add more power to Jeep.
Give the problem to Google, Microsoft and Mozilla--the constant one-upmanship in this recreation could turn out to be interesting.
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
Are its natural predators still around
Well the one that made it an extinct species in less than 25 years is. We're also more prevalent than ever and could probably do it more efficiently now too.
or will the passenger pigeon take over and push out other species (not to mention causing crop and tree damage)?
Unless they are much different than current pigeons, I think bridges and building are in more danger.
Bringing them back could raise some interesting questions on how the behavior of animals are inherited from generation to generation. Will the passenger pigeons act like their ancestors or will they take on different behavior?
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
We should make their shit be made of Gorilla Glue. That is what we should do.
What makes you think this is GMO related? Is this guy going to splice in some roundup genes?
Q: What do you get when you revive an extinct species of giant pig?
A: Jurassic pork
OK, I'll get my coat.
Oh no... it's the future.
It's not dead, it's resting! (oblig. Motny Python reference...)
I'm sure there are a lot of Canadian geese of many varieties that live on farms in Canada, but I suspect you mean to use the Canada Goose for your example.
Passenger pidgeons would be easy to eradicate again if needed. They rely on having enormous numbers to survive (like a cicada, or locusts). When a flock moves into the area, there are not enough predators to eat anywhere near a significant portion of the population. If they don't have a big enough flock, then they are easily wiped out by natural predation. And, if they do have a big flock, then humans can kill off a majority of it (as we have demonstrated in the past).
Bring back a mammoth.
* figuratively, not literally, please.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
or will the passenger pigeon take over and push out other species (not to mention causing crop and tree damage)?
Unless they are much different than current pigeons, I think bridges and building are in more danger.
Well, that's kind of the problem with bringing back an extinct species - you don't really know how will behave in the current environment until you bring it back. At first it's declared an endangered/protected species, and it starts to grow... flocks of thousands of birds in the air show the success of the program. Then the flocks grow millions, people start to complain about crop damage as the flocks grow to 100's of millions, putting entire forests are at risk.
It took man 25 years to drive them to extinction (and that's when he had the help from natural predators the had evolved to keep the birds in check), even if it "only" takes 10 years the next time, there's a lot of damage that could be done in the meantime. Plus, man may overshoot the mark and drive other species to extinction in their drive to control the passenger pigeon.
Sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.
I would never pay to go to an island and see a pigeon. I want to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Start working on the good animals.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Inject the extinct DNA into a goat, milk the goat, distill the milk to get some stem cells of the extinct species out of it, put the stem cells into the kidneys of a mouse, clone the mouse 526 times, kill the mice, put them all in a BlendTec blender and whiz it for a bit, feed the muck to some chickens who will eventually hatch the extinct pigeons, market a new line of extra crispy "chicken" at KFC.
I mean is so freakin obvious how to do this kind of stuff I am not sure why we don't revive all extinct species in this way.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
John Conure will teach us how to beat them.
How do you resurrect a species learnt abilities and knowledge ? Okay birds look like pre-programmed robots, but saying things like "extinction is forever is just nonsense" is wrong. Numerous species pass their hunting, social, swimming or hiding knowledge from parents to children. In fact, even birds learn singing from listening to those of their kind.
Actually, i think when you resurrect a species, you just engineer a new one using pieces of stuff drawn from existing material ; lost knowledge is lost forever.
This has proven to be a problem, even (perhaps especially) with birds. Great efforts have been made to captive-breed Thick-Billed parrots, and reintroduce them to their former, southern USA habitat. The released birds typically starve. They have a very specific diet, and they don't have other birds in the wild to show them how to find it.
Well, yes, it was a Unix system. IRIX to be exact.
These days, you can have it too :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
Don't be silly, nothing like that could happen - the new birds will be engineered to make them unable to produce Lysine, so they'll be dependent upon Lysine supplements from their keepers. Stop feeding them Lysine and the bio-engineered birds will die. Easy-peasy. What could go wrong?
That's why Passenger Pigeons are the perfect choice. Clone a badass motherfucker, like a dinosaur, back to life, and any failure of the failsafes(which never are) makes you carnivore food.
Clone a dumb bird that suffered hundreds of millions of casualties against humans armed with 18th century technology? No problem. What're they going to do, lame you to death?
I hear what your saying about the dangers of bringing back extinct species, but the last passenger pigeon died in 1914. It's not exactly like their predators have all evolved into something else. We already have other pigeons, sure this is a different species, but I think we have a good idea about their behavior and biology from similar species and historic accounts.
" I think bridges and building are in more danger."
Thank god you're not a statue.
They have over 1000 stuffed pidgeons though. Assuming only half of them have extractable dna (a very pessimistic figure), even if a single stuffed corpse is missing a viable gene sequence, there are 499 other birds that might have the missing section. Odds are good that they will be able to assemble a few "complete bibles" from the patched together scraps.
The long term issue I see is genetic bottlenecking, like what currently plagues the cheetah. 1000 COMPLETE copies is the bare minimum, assuming that all samples are unrelated, to efficiently preserve and purpetuate a species without having lots of deleterious homolozygous mutations showing up over time. These passenger pidgeons would be likely to develop sterility issues, and deleterious genetic disorders. "De-extincting" them would mean continual cloning and reintroduction of birds into the genepool to boost the numbers of healthy genes in the population. I doubt he would be able to crowdsource that kind of long term financial investment.
What we have here, is around 1000 incomplete copies. The number of whole genome sequences they can lift from those pieces greatly determines how viable the passenger pidgeon will be as a reintroduced wild species. With their sample size, and the conditions of their samples, however, prospects aren't terribly optimistic.
Well, no, he's looking at using recovered DNA to create a hybrid with a modern species - which is indeed a genetically modified organism. (And is pretty much what was being discussed in Jurassic Park, stripped of the sensational and thriller elements. Well, and the mosquitos preserved in amber.)
"Using next-generation sequencing..."
I see what you did there.
According to Wikipedia, attempts at preserving the last surviving Passenger Pigeons in the late 1800s failed because these birds only breed in extremely large groups. So unless they clone about 10,000 of them in one go, there won't be enough of them to prevent re-extinction.
" I think bridges and building are in more danger."
Thank god you're not a statue.
Don't Blink.
Small typo there - it should be "Passendger pidgeons".
Yes, yes, yes, OH GOD YES!
I've been wanting to eat one of these birds for DECADES! A bird so tasty, we hunted it to extinction!
There are recipes I wanted to try! Pies and stews and just cooked in the oven. They should do a kickstarter, I'd kick in!
I've seen this one on SyFy. The scientists accidentally mix in their DNA with the pigeon DNA and we get a ruthless bird-beast that kills with bird-flu contaminated venom. Starring that guy in that show you used to watch 15 years ago and a hot 22 year old wannabe actress the producer is fucking.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Will these animals even behave the same when they are recreated? After all, animals, like humans, have certain "cultures" where the parents teach their young how to effectively hunt, what to avoid, etc. Recreating an animal won't capture that. At most, they may have the same base instincts driving them, but they may effectively be completely different animals.
No problem. What're they going to do, lame you to death?
No, they'll repopulate, and bury the planet in their droppings...
Maybe they will repopulate North America, and in the process apply pressure to reduce numbers of imported, invasive pigeons.
We have the same problem right now with Snow Geese. They are a waterfowl that we thought needed protection. So we protected them. Now there are so many of them, they are overpopulating summer breeding grounds in Canada. So much so, that they are the only species of migratory waterfowl that has it's own hunting season at the end of the regular waterfowl season with no bag limit and all the other regular waterfowl season restrictions loosened. (You can use electronic calls, no shell limits, unplugged shotguns). They are practically begging hunters to kill as many as possible. And the hunters aren't doing a good job at it. The population keeps increasing every year.
21st Century Renaissance Man
RTFA there were over 1 billion of them in 1890 and then went extinct by 1914. You really think their natural predators have now all evolved to ignore them?
Some of their natural predators are now endangered themselves. Some of them are also known to be a nuisance to humans. Do you really want to give them an unlimited food source? Maybe the birds won't be a problem, but the rise of predators will be.
And are you sure that the predators can reproduce fast enough to keep up with the growth of pigeons?
And what happens to the ecosystems that are taken over by the expanding population of new predators (and the predators of the predators?)? And what happens to the new predator population if the pigeons are eradicated again?
This country is much different than it was 100 years ago, so maybe the birds will no longer thrive and it's a non-issue. Or maybe the easy access to crops and current lack of predators will let them grow to even greater numbers than before.
"I don't know why she swallowed the fly"
The basic gist is that any dinosaur DNA would be completely degraded. DNA has a half-life of 521 years with variations based on environmental conditions. A 2012 study showed that DNA would degrade past the point that we could read anything useful out of it after 1.5 million years, and would degrade completely after 6.8 million, and those are under optimal conditions. The Jurassic period ended 145 million years ago.
Source: http://m.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/scientists-dash-hopes-for-dinosaur-cloning
I've seen this one on SyFy. The scientists accidentally mix in their DNA with the pigeon DNA and we get a ruthless bird-beast that kills with bird-flu contaminated venom. Starring that guy in that show you used to watch 15 years ago and a hot 22 year old wannabe actress the producer is fucking.
I thought you were making that up but I looked it up and the movie is Flu Bird Horror, and I think the guy you're referring to is Lance Guest (aka Alex Rogan from The Last Starfighter)
Holy shit I WAS making that up!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
As long as it isn't Birdemic
I feel compelled to point out that pigeons are dinosaurs.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Recreate the Carolina parakeet. The last one was killed by a damn fool ornithologist.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
However, there are about 80 million pet cats in the US, and an estimated 50-60 million feral cats. Perfectly evolved hunters, largely immune to fluctuations in food availability, which the passenger pigeon didn't co-evolve with.
Wolves are an counter-example to your overreaction. They have been reintroduced to the US, and reintroducing a top predator is a hell of a lot more risky than reintroducing a pigeon. Broadly, reintroductions just don't cause the problems you claim and either dramatically improve things, or die out again. You are thinking of the problems of introduced foreign pest-species and projecting that onto the vastly safer re-introductions.
(Also, wolves are pigeon predators? WTF?)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
... they'll repopulate, and bury the planet in their droppings...
That's not really a joke.
As I understand it the Passenger Pigeon once cruised the flyways along the eastern part of the US in numbers so great that, during annual migrations, they darkened the sky for days and whitewashed the ground beneath. Their extinction was met more with relief than unhappiness.
That being said, I've always thought reviving this bird would be a good idea. It is reputed to be quite tasty, raising it in captivity should be a snap, and if it does get loose and establish a pest-level wild population, it's ALREADY been wiped out once by human action so we have a proof-of-concept.
Others on my list for revival:
- Quagga. (Zebras are essentially striped donkeys that are essentially impossible to domesticate. The Quagga is a relative that is EASY to domesticate - and in fact was, until it went extinct because other equines became more popular.)
Dodo: A flightless bird that went extinct very recently because it had evolved on an island, had no fear of people, and had it's "lek" (breeding ground) located right where the military built an airbase during a World War. Big as a domestic turkey but allegedly much more tasty,not prone to panic so easy to handle.
Mammoth: Those went extinct a while back (some populations apparently by human action), but some in Siberia are frozen in permafrost and suitable for extraction of well-preserved DNA. Apparently these were tasty enough that both stone-age Europeans and pre-Columbian American Indians hunted them - on an industrial scale in the case of the Indians.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way